Woman gets three and a half years for role in 'jack-a-john' scheme

A woman who admitted to taking part in a “jack-a-john” scheme that resulted in a military man being taken captive at knifepoint, injected with methamphetamine and robbed has been sentenced to more than three years behind bars.

“The circumstances of this case are horrendous,” Judge John Combs said in his decision delivered in Brandon provincial court last week.

“The (victim) was effectively tortured for an extensive period of time and it included the egregious act of forcible injection of methamphetamine. Obviously this charge is extremely serious in nature and anytime a victim is detained for a number of hours and subjected to this type of treatment, there has to be an emphasis of deterrence and denunciation.”

Patience Harris, 21, was the third of four co-accused to plead guilty to charges in relation to the incident on May 6, 2017.

A woman who admitted to taking part in a “jack-a-john” scheme that resulted in a military man being taken captive at knifepoint, injected with methamphetamine and robbed has been sentenced to more than three years behind bars.

“The circumstances of this case are horrendous,” Judge John Combs said in his decision delivered in Brandon provincial court last week.

“The (victim) was effectively tortured for an extensive period of time and it included the egregious act of forcible injection of methamphetamine. Obviously this charge is extremely serious in nature and anytime a victim is detained for a number of hours and subjected to this type of treatment, there has to be an emphasis of deterrence and denunciation.”

Patience Harris, 21, was the third of four co-accused to plead guilty to charges in relation to the incident on May 6, 2017.

She pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including robbery with violence.

The victim, a military member from CFB Shilo, was leaving the Great Western Roadhouse bar in the early morning hours when he found an escort’s advertisement on Backpage.com and arranged to meet with her.

The escort, Kayla Henderson, asked Harris to join her and they picked the man up in a cab and brought him to an apartment, where their cohorts Leighton Safroniak and Franklin Cook were waiting for them.

Wearing balaclavas and carrying machetes, Safroniak and Cook forced the man inside, where they tied him up and threatened him with various weapons, such as pliers, hammers and a blow torch until he gave them his debit and credit card PINs.

Through multiple e-transactions, the group coerced a little more than $2,700 from the victim, and when they hit his e-transfers allowed in one day, Cook forcibly injected the victim with methamphetamine twice with a shared needle.

After he was eventually released, the victim — still under the influence of meth — continued to "party" with his captors, asking for meth on two more occasions and following them to different locations until they eventually told him to go away.

Harris was less involved in the violence and threats than that of her co-accused, Combs noted, as she did not participate directly and tried to stop the injection of drugs into the victim.

However, Harris admitted to jacking johns in the past as it was how she made a living,Combs said, and knew that’s what she was going to take part in that day.

“The accused knew she was leading the victim into a circumstance where he would be forcibly robbed and obviously was somewhat responsible for the victim finding himself in the situation he did,” Combs said.

Harris’s guilty plea also spared the victim from having to testify in court, an action Combs said he saw as a sign of remorse.

Harris was sentenced to three and a half years incarceration. After a credit of approximately 15 months for time already served, Harris has approximately 16 months left in custody.

Safroniak is currently serving five years in prison and Cook is serving seven years.

Henderson has yet to be brought into police custody and a warrant remains outstanding for her arrest.

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